Never For Granted
by Rainstorm Amaya Arianrhod
Summary: Kel has known she can't take a Conte for granted since she was ten, but it's a lesson life seems bent on teaching her over and over again. Kel/Lianne II.


**A/N:** Written for Fief Goldenlake's Peculiar Pairings Ficathon. _**Please read and review!**_

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Kel had always known that she could never take a Conté for granted. She could never trust them always to be on her side, or to do what she saw as the right thing. She had learnt that lesson when King Jonathan put her on probation, and lost any chance of anything more personal from Kel than loyalty to her country and by default the man who ran it. She had applied the same lesson to Roald, but not so harshly, because she understood him; she understood that he thought much the same way she did, and that he was chained in manacles made of duty that too often wouldn't let him do as he wished- that he trod a very fine line and tried desperately hard to be all things to all people, and that his own nature would not allow him to defy duty. Kel knew the feeling very well; duty had kept her at Haven when she chafed to be gone, duty forced her to do a dozen things she would rather not all the time. Queen Thayet was only a Conté by marriage, and one Kel knew very little of, but all the same she would never have assumed that Thayet would support her, even if she was more progressive than her husband.

Kel had never expected to make the acquaintance of any of the other princes and princesses, except possibly as a glimpse of a dark-haired, broad-shouldered page addressed as Jasson or a collision with a whirlwind child who turned out to be Princess Vania. Prince Liam she had seen at a banquet once, flirting shamelessly with Rosalinde of Hannalof. She didn't know much about Princess Lianne at all, except what rumour told of her training as a mage and her (greatly exaggerated by the gossipers) beauty, and would never in her wildest dreams have imagined what began, quite by chance, one hot and dusty summer's day in Corus.

She had ridden into the palace with a column of the Own, assorted Riders and a few knights, rather more scratched than she had been at the beginning of the journey on account of some startlingly violent hurroks, and had been immediately directed to the Healers' Wing and the Duty Healers. Sitting patiently in the waiting room, watched over by an anxious apprentice healer, she had seen a young woman walk in- medium-height, with brown eyes, creamy skin, the kind of presence that drew all eyes to her and, with her hair braided tightly back from her face, much the look of a dangerous eagle. The young woman was also very familiar, with a strong resemblance to her famous mother, and Kel's jaw had dropped for a brief second as she recognised Princess Lianne- dressed not in delicate court finery, but in a plain blue dress with a sturdy apron tied over the top and a healer's armband around her left bicep.

"Who have you got for me, Williamson?" the princess was asking crisply, "Jermyn said there was a despicable queue out here."

The apprentice healer, Williamson, handed over the slip of parchment he'd filled out about Kel and pointed to her with a hand that shook only slightly. Kel was impressed; the princess, she had already decided, was very formidable indeed. Williamson was clearly petrified of her.

But then all this was forgotten as those brown eyes settled on Kel and a small smile quirked the princess's mouth, making her seem instantly friendlier. "Ah, one of our warrior stoics. Lady Knight Keladry, isn't it?"

"Yes, your highness," Kel said, standing and resisting the urge to salute.

Princess Lianne glanced down at the slip of parchment. "It says here you have three partially healed gashes sustained during a hurrok attack while travelling south in a convoy of Own, Riders and knights. Partially healed? There should have been a good number of healers there. Did you not seek more full medical attention?"

"There were others worse hurt, your highness," Kel explained.

Princess Lianne levelled a glare at Kel's bandaged shoulder and left arm, entirely unimpressed. "As you say, lady knight. Please come with me."

Obediently, Kel followed her out of the waiting room, along the main ward and left into a corridor of smaller treatment rooms, each with a wooden plaque labelling the healer in charge of it. Eventually, they came to a door with a plaque labelled _Lianne of Conté_, and Kel noticed that the paint on it was fresh and new. Possibly Princess Lianne had started to work in the Healers' Wing while Kel was on her tour of duty with the Own, which would explain why Kel hadn't known about it.

Princess Lianne pushed the door open and let Kel in. "Take a seat," she ordered.

Kel did so and looked around the office. It was plain and tidy, with the usual desk and the usual piles of paper, the box of thin treated cotton gloves, the small pitcher, basin and strong soap to clean hands with, the simpler medicines –anything more complicated would have to be released by the dispensary- and instruments in a cupboard and a treatment table with a clean sheet over it, everything much as Kel would have seen it in any other Healer's office. There was nothing different about it because its occupant was a princess.

Lianne sat down on the other side of the desk and eyed that slip of parchment again. "Three gashes on your left arm. Your shield arm? But one is on the forearm, and that should have been covered by your shield."

"We were taken by surprise, your highness," Kel said, and remembered the hurroks swooping down on them from the bluffs with so little warning, hidden in the bare trees clinging to the rock and high enough up that the horses didn't sense them and weren't skittish, but they came down so fast that Kel had had no time to bring up her shield- and in any case she had been riding Hoshi, and her shield had been on Peachblossom. Daine would have known the hurroks were there and warned them; Daine had not been present. "I had no time to react. I put up my arm to defend myself."

"An improvement on having your face ripped open," Princess Lianne agreed, stacking papers, and then looked sharply up at Kel. She had remarkable eyes: more hazel than brown, really, Kel noticed. "And- lady knight –I'm not 'your highness' in the Healers' Wing. I'm Healer Conté."

"Yes, Healer Conté," Kel said meekly.

"Excellent, Keladry," Lianne smiled, and then added with a questioning eyebrow: "If I may?"

"Of course, your- Healer Conté." Kel was beginning to understand those besotted members of the Own and young knights who had described Lianne as beautiful; she wasn't, exactly, the lines of her face were too sharp and harsh, her expression too unforgiving and disciplined until she smiled, and Kel had no doubt she could be terrifying, but you just could not take your eyes off her, and you noticed everything pretty about her – those eyes, the figure, the creamy skin and full lips...

"Mm. Thank you." Lianne got up, and went over to the door, which she opened, then stuck her head out and looked both ways down the corridor. "Smi-ith!" she yelled.

Another apprentice bowled down the corridor and skidded to a stop inches from the princess. Lianne didn't wait for him to ask what she wanted, but simply ordered: "Lady Knight Keladry's records," and watched as he shot off in the opposite direction.

Lianne returned to her seat, the dress swishing with her movements. It did not have the fashionable number of petticoats, and as a consequence followed her real figure closely. Kel found it hard not to watch the sway of the princess's hips, but she had spent years disciplining herself not to let people know through her face or body language what she was thinking, and it didn't show.

"Now," Lianne said, jotting notes on rough paper. "It doesn't say here who originally treated you."

"Sir Nealan of Queenscove, Healer Conté," Kel answered.

"To the extent of..." Lianne peered at the little slip the apprentice Williamson had given her describing Kel's condition. "Williamson's handwriting is an affront to humanity. Can you make that out? I think it says 'cleaning wounds, speeding' and then I can't tell the rest."

She held it out to Kel, leaning over the desk towards her. Kel leant forward as well, trying to read the scrawl. "... clotting, I think it says."

"Thank you." Lianne withdrew the slip, and worked out the rest. "And then- partial healing. Cleaning wounds, speeding clotting, and partial healing. Sir Nealan's work, of course. He has a reputation for being thorough, hysterics notwithstanding... But you're still wearing heavy bandages."

"Yes, Healer Conté," Kel said, looking down at her left arm, visibly bulkier beneath her tunic and shirt with the bandages wrapped round it.

Lianne sighed, and stood. "Right, then. If you could sit on the treatment table, please."

Kel got up, and went to sit on the table, just as someone knocked on the door. Lianne went to it, and took the file the returned apprentice brought her with a word of thanks, laying it open on her desk and then going to stand in front of Kel. "Can you take your tunic and shirt off without straining your arm?"

"Yes," Kel said, untruthfully, and got the tunic off. She struggled with the shirt, but Lianne helped her.

"Can you move your hand for me?" Lianne asked; Kel made a fist and opened it again. "Did that hurt?"

"No."

"Move your arm from the elbow... Yes, that hurt. From the shoulder? All right, stop." The princess moved closer to Kel so that she could reach the bandages, unpinning, untying and unwinding the layers carefully till she reached the gauzy pads underneath, directly over the wounds themselves, which had salve on and were probably, by this time, very stuck to the gashes.

This was going to _hurt_. Kel gritted her teeth, resigned.

One of Lianne's cool hands settled on Kel's shoulder, a faint blue glow forming around it, and she smiled into Kel's eyes. "Relax," she soothed, and held Kel's eyes for a very long moment, still smiling, until Kel realised that the pads had been pulled away and she hadn't felt a thing- and also that she couldn't have looked away from that smile if she'd tried to.

Lianne hissed softly under her breath in sympathy as she thoroughly examined the wounds. Her fingers were light and careful, but Kel couldn't stop herself flinching when the other woman touched raw skin.

"Ssh, easy," Lianne murmured, sparing one hand to brush Kel's shoulder gently, a comforting sliver of blue Gift slipping through the skin, spreading cool painlessness behind it. "Trust me. I'm not going to hurt you... Right..."

Examination finished, she stepped back and went over to the cupboard, took out a salve, fresh gauze pads and fresh bandages, then put them on the treatment table and moved to the basin to wash her hands thoroughly before returning to Kel. "Now, I'm going to clean these nasty scratches again and partially heal them. I think it would be best if they were healed a little at a time, give the body time to heal a little for itself. The more natural healing, the better- I don't want you building up a resistance to healing before you're even thirty –but I don't feel inclined to let these hang around and in any case the effect of several small healings on a possible resistance is less than that of one big healing. This means that you'll have to come back to me a few more times, and also that there is to be none of that running around whacking people with pointy objects that you like to call training until I say so, do you follow me?"

"Yes, Healer Conté," Kel agreed obediently.

"Lie down, please."

Kel swung her legs up onto the treatment table and lay down; Lianne moved the bandages and salve away, and then put them down on the little space on the table Kel wasn't occupying.

"Don't fight me." Lianne's voice was soft in the silent room. The Healers' Wing had been built with the intention of keeping sound from travelling, so that sleeping patients would not be disturbed by the noises in another room, and Kel could hear her own breathing and her own heartbeat, loud in her ears and strangely fast, intermingling with the soft rustle of Lianne's dress as she moved.

Lianne laid her hands over the first of the gashes, and Kel closed her eyes. It didn't hurt: Lianne must already have cast something to stop the pain. The healing spell was warm on her unmarked skin, but cool as it trickled into the wounds, spreading slowly through the abused flesh, mending as it went. Lulled almost to sleep, Kel blinked drowsily when the healing finished and Lianne, having salved the gashes, helped her sit up so she could bandage them. Dull with sleep, Kel noticed almost absently Lianne's brisk, competent healer's touch, the hard callouses from reins on her hands and neatly kept nails, how close she was to Kel and the way long black eyelashes framed her brown eyes.

"There," Lianne said, and tied the last knot, stepping away with a warm smile. She quickly scribbled something onto a slip of the scrappy, cheap paper used for unimportant messages or notes, signed it, and put it into Kel's hand, folding unresponsive fingers around it. "That's a prescription for pain medication. Take it to the dispensary- if you go out into the main ward, and turn left till you go right to the end, you'll reach it. Do it quickly, and then go to bed and go to sleep. You'll be hungry and sore when you wake up: take the medicine after you eat, never before, do you understand? Never on an empty stomach. And come back to see me in two days' time. I'll make you an appointment at five bells past dawn. Five bells past dawn, two days' time. Be so kind as to remember; late patients are most annoying."

Kel nodded. "Yes, your h- Healer Conté," she corrected herself, remembering Lianne's earlier request. "I won't forget." Then she bowed to the princess, and left.

Lianne smiled, and went back to the business of writing down a description of the treatment to go into Kel's record- and if there was an extra dimension to her smile, something a little less high-minded than usual, there was nobody there to notice.

Kel came back for her appointment two days later.

And she came back for a second appointment two days after that.

And a third two days after that.

And when her arm was fully healed, she accepted an invitation to play chess.

And three days later, they went riding in the Royal Forest.

The general opinion was that Kel and the princess, thrown together by their mothers' close friendship, had struck up a friendship of their own. General opinion was wrong on the first part, and only half right on the second; Kel was reasonably certain that it had gone a long way past friendship.

All the time, Kel reminded herself that she could never take a Conté for granted. There was always a catch to their gifts or their friendship or their- whatever she had with Lianne. (There was a proper word for it in Yamani. All the Tortallan words Kel knew for- this –were ugly and sneering.) She had learnt that a long time ago, and Keladry of Mindelan did not forget. Still, she felt a knife-blow of bitter jealousy when two months afterwards she saw Lianne with Alan of Pirate's Swoop, smiling up into his eyes as if he was the only person in the world, with the full glory of all-enchanting, heart-rejoicing, fate-defying love spread across both their faces.

Lianne had never looked at _her_ like that.


End file.
